And so It Ends

This will be my last entry before returning home. Tomorrow's entry will be written from Davis.

When we looked out the window this morning, it looked like the world was disappearing.

Looking across the lagoon, you would not know there was anything out there anywhere.  But the shuttle boat got us to the pier safely and we had to decide what we wanted to do.  My friend Laurie Feldman (who started her career as a 5 year old memorizing all the lyrics to G&S operettas and has gone on to become an opera director for such little companies as the SF Opera, the Met, and La Scala, had told me about a restaurant we must find.  Acqua Pazza, which is off the beaten track, so that was our goal today, but first we had to walk there, and that involved some detours.

I must say that I am extremely grateful to the IDA (is there an Italians with Disabilities act?) responsible for this:

This has resulted in ramps being added to many of the bridges along the promenade.

They may not look as picturesque as the steps themselves, but today I had to walk up a few small bridges without ramps and realized that this would have been quite a different trip for me if I did not have ramps to walk on.  Of course, the ramps may have cut walk-in customers to some small businesses, but we helped take care of that at this one lovely glass shop.

It was the last day, after all, and those of us who had restrained ourselves in purchases suddenly threw caution to the wind and perhaps made the shop keeper's day in the process.  There were just gorgeous things.  Most very expensive.  I did NOT buy these, for example, though they were very cute.

Purchases made, we hefted our bags and wended our way across a couple more bridges (with ramps) to where we could buy tickets for the vaporetto, the water bus, to take us to San Angelo station, from where we could walk to the piazza where the restaurant was.  I was excited.  Laurie had made this restaurant sound SO wonderful and I was happy to be actually following her directions.  Additionally, our adventure was taking us out of the main part of Venice and into the less traveled parts, which was nice.

The vaporetto was jammed to the gills.  This woman seemed to feel that she and her child deserved the seats reserved for the old and disabled (Bob and I qualified on both counts).  The child looked to be a bit older than Bri and decidedly able bodied.

We got off the vaporetto and wended our way through tiny streets until we finally founded it.  Acqua Pazza, right on the plaza where the web page photo shows it to be.  Closed on Mondays.  Arrrggghhhh!!!

However, there was a place next door, and we were its only customers.

I don't know what Acqua Pazza has to offer, but this place had really good pizza, my last in Italy.

.

Nicely sated, we asked the waiter for directions to La Fenice, which Laurie said was a theater where she directed and was nearby.  Like really nearby.  This out of the way, unassuming looking theater is apparently one of the oldest and most respected opera houses in Venice.   It is one of "the most famous and renowned landmarks in the history of Italian theatre", and in the history of opera as a whole. Especially in the 19th century, La Fenice became the site of many famous operatic premieres at which the works of several of the four major bel canto era composers—Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and Verdi were performed.

Its name means "Phoenix," and like the famous phoenix, it has risen up from ashes three times. In 1774 the house was destroyed and rebuilt, but not opened until 1792; the second fire came in 1836, but rebuilding was completed within a year. However, the third fire was the result of arson. It destroyed the house in 1996 leaving only the exterior walls, but it was rebuilt and re-opened in November 2004.

The result is magnificent

More of my dwindling Euros were spent here.

From here Walt discovered it was just a "hop, skip and a jump" to St. Mark's square.  And it truly was.  Quite an easy walk.  What a difference on a foggy Monday than on a sunny weekend day!

We were in need of gelato, so we found a place which was right in front of a place where musicians were setting up.  We each got a cone and settled into the tables.  Suddenly a waiter came out and told us we had to leave.  We said we just wanted to finish our cones.  He said that no, we had to leave.  Bob asked if he could order something from the menu.  The waiter said no, we had to leave.  So we left.  I guess he was expecting a large influx of people in the next 10 minutes.

The musicians began playing to an empty house and we headed back to the shuttle boat and back to the hotel.

In the hotel we rested for a bit and then met at 6:30 for our last supper.  We all wanted something light.  I ordered foccacia, remembering that wonderful bread of my youth, which my mother would buy in North Beach.  It came with olive oil, a little tomato sauce, and scallion greens on the top, I remember.  That was what I expected here, not an Italian veggie burger!

I could only eat half of it and gave most of my chips to Walt.  Char who wanted something light, ordered prosciutto and melon, which sounded like it would fit the bill nicely.  Uh...not so much.

Enough prosciutto to feed a small army.  Even with my help, it didn't get all finished.

But eventually we had to pay the bill and head back to our rooms.  Linda and Bob aren't leaving here until 6:30, so we have seen them for the last time.  The rest of us will be staggering down to the lobby at 3:30 a.m.  If the weather is OK, we will go to the airport by boat, a 30 minute ride, they tell us.  That will also be an adventure.  If it's as foggy as it was today, they will probably send us by bus.

So this ends the Mediterranean Odyssey and I'm already realizing that I have to actually plan and cook dinner when we get home tomorrow.  One does return to reality with a bang!

"The Best People I Know"

We've Got a Golden Ticket!

I had not intended to wear my jello shirt two days in a row, but we had to have our bags out for pick up by 10 last night and I put all my clothes in the pick-up suitcase and that left only the clothes on my back.  So. Jello, Day 2 (though I have to admit it has had nice comments from fellow passengers!)
It was so nice to wake up, look out our window and see this:

I guess they got so many complaints yesterday that they decided to bus EVERYBODY to the terminal and there was a fleet of transports for us.  Much better.

The ride over to the Hilton Molino Stucky (this is an old flour mill run by a guy named Stucky) took a fraction of the time it took to load up the boat.  Goodbye, Viking Star.  Sniff.  We will miss you!

The hotel is a big old thing and sits right on the water of Canale Della Giudecca, facing St. Mark's square.

This is the view from the hotel.

 

This is the view from our room.

Brackish water in a canal and somebody's garbage.  But that's OK.  We'll hardly be here and then be winging our way home before we know it. 

Check in was a nightmare and took forever.  The hotel was not set up for checking in 150 passengers all at once (though they should have expected it) and had only ONE clerk working.  When they finally got a couple of other clerks things went faster.  We just sat around until we could check in.  Walt and I got our room right away, but they hadn't assigned rooms to Char or to Linda and Bob, so they just put all their carry-on stuff in our room and we got back on the transport and went to St. Mark's again.

First order of business was something to eat, since we all had almost no breakfast, so we went to a cafe near the boat dock.  A lovely young man served us and was quite pleasant.

We all ordered paninis but Walt decided to have pasta with pesto, since he loves pesto so much.  He was thrilled to find out that the pasta was trofi, a pasta Jeri and I discovered in Italy in 2010.  In truth, I don't like it much, but Walt does, so he was happy.

Bob, Linda, Walt and I wanted to ride a gondola.  Char passed, since she had done it before.  There was no line to get on the boat (when we came back it was mobbed), so we got on--a treacherous proposition when you are large and have difficulty balancing!--and started off.  I had actually considered not going on this ride, thinking it was just too cliché and touristy, but I am so glad I didn't say that.  

They had to balance the weight right, so Walt ended up paired with Linda, while Bob and I sat on opposite sides of the boat.

Once we got onto the side canals, it was magic.  Every minute was worth taking pictures.

The house below was apparently the residence of Casanova, for a while.

Definitely a not-to-be-missed experience.  Of course then we had to get OFF the gondola, and that was no easy feat either, but the gondolieri are very experienced at what they do and got both Bob and me off without dropping either of us (or our cameras) in the water.

So this is why Char didn't go with us!

We found a small street where you could walk next to a canal and enjoyed looking at some of the shops and restaurants, like this fish place.

..

...and this place that sold Christmas ornaments and other things made of glass.

We walked as far as a small piazza, where Linda and Walt found a shop that each of them wanted to buy something in...

...and then we found another small street which took us, again, back out to the main street.  We stood around for a bit trying to decide what to do next, which seemed a good time to take more pictures.

But we all admitted that we had had enough walking, so we went to where the shuttle boat would pick us up, and returned to the hotel.  Bob and Linda finally had a room assignment--next door to Walt and me.  Char went off to her room and then sent a note letting me know where she had made reservations for dinner.  It was time for her to make good the "golden ticket" she gave us on our 50th anniversary (dinner in Venice).

We went to Bucaroni, here in the hotel.  It was a small place, but the staff could not have been more friendly or the food any more delicious.  We had one more group photo taken of "the best people I know..." (Bob's standard toast).

When dinner was finished, we found a spot arranged just like the spot where we sit and talk every night on the Viking Star.  Well, maybe not quite the way we visited each evening on the Viking Star.

But eventually we had to admit that we were all fading fast, and so we ended the visit and headed off to our rooms to sleep some.

Tomorrow we can sleep late, breakfast late, and then head over to the other side.  We are going to try to find a restaurant that was recommended to us by my friend Laurie Feldman.  We figure we'll have a late lunch and then not worry about dinner.

Tomorrow night it's bags out at 10 and from there home....

Alas, No Rossano

I sat in St. Mark's Square with my camera, but Rossano Brazzi never showed up.  I guess that was because (a) he's dead and (b) I'm no Katharine Hepburn.  Or it might have been that I was with a group.

(Char took this)

I loved Summertime as an adolescent and have wanted to go to Venice ever since.  It's a lot different than the magic of that film!  But let's go back to the beginning.

It was a big "event" arriving in Venice.  All the decks were filled with people and their cameras and a guide talked us in, pointing out landmarks as they appeared.  I never realized it was so sprawled out or that it consisted of so many islands,

The Little Tugboat that Could pulled us into the dock.

The best part of being in with everyone watching the landing was getting a photo of our favorite...employee?  Ivana seems to be everywhere and is so sparkling and bouncy you can't help but feel good when you see her.

Walt and I had a big breakfast (sitting next to a couple who had lived for 37 years in our old Oakland neighborhood!) and so I wasn't interested in lunch.  Our afternoon tour was to leave at 12:30.  I suppose I should have used the time to pack (we have to have bags out by 10 p.m. tonight) but I sat and read instead.

At the recommended time we left the ship and started walking to the water taxi.  Walt guesstimates it was the length of 2 football fields.  He had seen a transport for people with mobility problems earlier, but there was none in sight and nobody mentioned any so we walked.  When we reached the halfway point (a building we passed through) I asked  the Compassion rep if this was the end of the tour.  She said no.  No sense of humor whatsoever.

[aside:  As I write this, the 5:30 Angelus bells are ringing from some nearby church.  Somehow it's magic]

While we stood and waited to board the boat, I got this neat picture of the ship between statues.

The boat shuttle gave us about an hour tour of the harbor, pointing out various landmarks (in totally unintelligible English).  The one thing I noticed was that the area of St. Marks Square, the Bridge of Sighs, etc. was mobbed.

(Later at the end of the day, when we were going back to the ship, I noticed that from as far as I could see from the left of St. Mark's square to as far right as I could see--more than a mile, I'm sure, it was wall to wall people.  Reminded me of that old Star Trek  episode, "The Mark of Gideon," where Kirk is brought in to introduce disease to a planet that was so full of people (because they never died) that they had no room to move.)

But we did see some nice sights.

The Bridge of Sighs, which condemned prisoners walked over from the Doge's Palace (left) to the prison where they were going to be executed (you'd sigh too, I imagine!).

Another bridge

Another dome

Even the trees were beautiful.

When we finally got to the dock, we met our tour guide, who picked up his little lollipop, #6, held it aloft and took off, telling us to keep up. That's the last we saw of him.  He got so far ahead of Bob and me and we couldn't even hear him in our Quiet Vox, so we decided to just do our own tour.

We finally made our way down to St. Mark's Square and it was so crowded all we really wanted to do was sit and have a coffee, so we went to a very high priced cafe and probably had the most expensive pizza and cappuccino we have ever (or will ever) have...but it was just right.

(please note Jello shirt)

We sat there for a long while, people watching, pigeon watching, and listening to the bells that rang from time to time. Then Linda and Char went for gelato.  Char got pistachio and was a happy camper.

Eventually, Walt, Char and I made our way down to where we could see St. Mark's itself.

St. Mark's Square is more a place to buy souvenirs than anything else!

No romantic interludes for Katharine and Rossano over a quiet glass of wine while a string quartet across the plaza serenades them.  No quiet anything there!  And the line to get IN to the church stretched at least half the distance from the door down length of the piazza.  Good thing we hadn't planned to see it.  I did see the famous four horses, though.  I had seen a story about them on TV once.

From Wikipedia: They are a set of bronze statues of four horses, originally part of a monument depicting a quadriga (a four-horse carriage used for chariot racing) The horses were placed on the facade, on the loggia above the porch, of St Mark's Basilica in Venice, after the sack of Constantinople in 1204. They remained there until looted by Napoleon in 1797 but were returned in 1815. The sculptures have been removed from the facade and placed in the interior of St. Mark's for conservation purposes, with replicas in their position on the loggia.

At our appointed time, we started to go to the water taxi meeting place....

...on the other side of the blue square...through all that mass of people.  I did, at least, stop to get the requisite photo of gondolas.

When we got back to where we started, there was still no shuttle and we had, they tell us, ~150 m to walk to the ship, which seemed MUCH longer than it did that morning.  I was really hurting, and hobbling and at one point nearly crying.

The warning came a little too late.

When I called and complained to the Explorer Desk, the girl was defensive and told me the notice WAS in the daily newspaper.  Yeah, but where was the shuttle???  Linda also complained and got no satisfaction either.

We went to dinner at 6 and asked for Angelo's table.  Something was just "off" in the kitchen and the restaurant tonight.  Nothing you could put your finger on, but everyone seemed stressed, there were longer than usual waits for food, and though Angelo was fun, he wasn't his old self.  But the food was good.  I was sorry Angelo was nowhere to be found when we left.  I would like to have said goodbye.

We had to have our suitcases out by 10 p.m. so Viking can transfer them to our hotel in the morning.  I hope I have enough space in my carry on stuff to put everything that I did NOT put in the big suitcase. 

We have to be off the ship by 8 a.m. tomorrow and then a new part of our adventure begins.